As you get older . . .

What’s a good remedy for mental confusion, or whatever you call it when you lose track of what you’re doing? It happens too often to suit me.

I went to a seminar last week and took my digital recorder along; a nifty little gadget that can record hundreds of hours of music and speeches in reasonable quality. I recorded the meeting. I always put it into my shirt pocket, along with my small cell phone.

This week I wanted to do the same thing but I couldn’t find the recorder. It’s a tiny thing, about 4 inches high and an inch wide. The last time I remember seeing it was on the stand beside my bed.

It was Trash Day at our place and I dragged the kitchen trash bag around to the various waste baskets and dumped trash into it, including some from the waste basket right by the bed stand. I tightly knotted the trash bag closed and carried it outside by the lane—in the wind and rain. Then I checked all over for the recorder.

My wife Lucy helpfully suggested that it could have fallen into the waste basket. It gave me pause. The trash bag was already outside, ready to be picked up but I went out into the wind and rain again and retrieved it, brought it back to the kitchen and systematically emptied the contents of the trash bag into another, checking thoroughly through all the dust, hair, cardboard, papers, wires, a broken flower pot, wrappings, egg shells, plastic, and other nondescript flotsam, ad nauseam. It took some time. There was no sign of what I was looking for.

I went back down to the basement to look around my computer to see if I missed any spot it could be. As I thoughtfully went back upstairs, I reached into my trouser pocket . . .

The meeting went well. I recorded the whole thing in an effort to refresh my ailing memory ... if I don't lose it again—my mind or the machine.